Perry Rhodan NEO: Volume 10 (English Edition)

By Marc A. Herren, Hermann Ritter and toi8

When Crest leads an unlikely group on his search for the Planet of Eternal Life, they end up on a version of Ferrol that shouldn’t exist. Are they in a parallel universe that will somehow let them find immortality?

Meanwhile, Sid comes face to face with his greatest foe...or so it seems. Ivanovich Goratschin killed Sid’s childhood friend, but he’s been dead for a long time. His twin brother claims to be making a fresh start—but how much can Sid trust him?

Far away in the Vega system, Rhodan’s crew, lost in space and time after landing on the Ferron world of Reyan, discovers a conflict brewing between the water-dwellers and the land-dwellers, two groups descended from the original colonists.

Back home, Dr. Manoli and the historian Aescunnar have begun a space journey of their own as they attempt to learn more about the Arkonides’ prior activities in Earth’s solar system. Their research soon brings them to Saturn’s moons, where danger and an uncertain fate await them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J-Novel Pulp
• Release date: Nov 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781718379282

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Episode 19: Beneath Two Moons

Episode 20: The Floating City

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

frontmatter1

Prologue

When he closed his eyes, the impression of the glaring white sun clung to his retinas. It danced around like a specter brought to life on an antique photo negative.

Some say God doesn’t roll the dice, he thought. Others insist there is no God. And others still wonder who is rolling the dice if not God.

The images from back then had been haunting him for hours, as they sometimes did when the fountain of memories suddenly rose up and gushed forth what should have stayed buried.

He knew that most people drew strength from their personal histories. For many, the experiences formed a reservoir from which they drew the knowledge that their lives thus far hadn’t been for nothing. That the goals they had achieved, conquests they had celebrated, had served solely to prove that their existence on Mother Earth meant something, and that outgrowing the sweet bosom of youth had signaled a necessary and therefore honorable endeavor.

For him, these memories represented a burden that he kept locked up tight. They were shimmering imprints deep in the fountain of memories—and that was more than enough.

It was said that olfactory memories were the strongest. The smell of the staircase from your childhood. Your first love’s perfume. Acrid smoke and tear gas mixed with the dusty desert floor. Memories could be submerged for decades, and a single breath was enough to be overwhelmed with pictures, stories, and feelings. A toy car racing down the stair rail. The first dance with the beauty from the other class in his grade. Lieutenant Thomas C. Hardy, mutilated in a surprise attack from the Taliban after they’d held out for hours, supposedly waiting in ambush.

The sun mercilessly blazing down on him as he carried his superior officer through enemy territory for two hours before setting him down at the agreed meeting point, only then realizing that all life had ebbed out of the man’s body. Then came the unbelievable exhaustion and despondency in the hours following this realization.

Goratschin opened his eyes. The sun over the Gobi, over Terrania, beamed with the same intensity it had back then.

Half a lifetime ago. Thomas C. Hardy, farmer from Ohio, hadn’t lived to see his twenty-third birthday. But Goratschin was still here. Rampage, his comrades had called him. He’d hated the name. During his captivity, he’d discovered that the Taliban fighters had given him a nickname too: Zanawar.

His brother, who had fought in Iraq during the same period, had similarly received a nickname: Ivanhoe, the noble knight.

The captivity had only been brief. Nothing could constrain a man like him—not drugs, chains, or walls of steel. The hideout deep in the mountains on the Pakistani border hadn’t withstood his powers for long. Calcium atoms could be found everywhere.

He’d fled through plumes of fire, accompanied by the screams of the dying. Impelled by pure survival instinct, he’d banished his fear to the most distant corner of his consciousness, ignored the pain, and escaped from hell.

Many years later, he knew that despite escaping that prison, he’d still be a prisoner his whole life long. The fountain of memories ran far too deep. A jailer lurked inside him that would never let him go. Not as long as he lived.

Goratschin closed his eyes. He felt tired.

1.

Tatiana Michalovna

September 14, 2036

On an Alien World

They stepped out of the blackness of the shimmering field into the twilit jungle. Immediately, Tatiana Michalovna knew that something wasn’t right. Without warning, she felt weak, as if a heavy weight around her neck was inexorably dragging her down.

Gravity compensation complete, reported the voice of her suit’s Positronic.

The gravity was reduced in an instant. Relieved, she breathed in. The air smelled fresh and vital. The atmosphere was filled with a many-throated chattering, calling, howling, and crying, the flapping of moths and the babbling of a waterfall not too far away.

Only then came the thought that changed everything: We’ve left Earth. This is another planet!

The shimmering died away, the transmitter no longer active. At once, it grew darker around them. Michalovna squinted. The night wasn’t impenetrable. Wherever they were, dawn was clearly about to break at the location they’d emerged. The moon’s bright disc poured milky light down on them.

She threw a glance over her shoulder. The transmitter had switched itself off. Did that rule out any return to Earth for them? She thought of the dazzling explosion, the last impression she’d taken with her of the underwater dome by the Azores. If the transmitter there had been destroyed, going back was impossible either way.

Do you feel it? Trker-Hon asked. The gravity has changed. We are no longer on Earth.

I... Crest began before a rasping breath escaped his lips and his head sank forward.

Only the battledress’s Positronic kept the Arkonide from collapsing. Taking advantage of the delay, Trker-Hon grabbed him under the arms and carefully laid him down on the floor. Then the Topsidan pulled a bottle out of his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and gave Crest some to drink.

Michalovna knelt down next to the Arkonide. In the pale moonlight, Crest’s face reminded her of a drowned corpse. The old man looked ill and somehow lifeless.

What... What happened? Crest asked between gulps. An error during transport?

Trker-Hon looked at the Arkonide. I didn’t notice much before the transition. You made a very courageous, possibly deadly decision, Crest. You left your old behind to seek eternal life. Thora’s sudden appearance and her desperate appeal—it must have shaken you to your core. At least, I assume so, although I don’t have a detailed understanding of Arkonide psychology.

Crest’s eyes widened. Thora! he murmured. Did you see if something happened to her?

No, Crest, said Trker-Hon. Thora and Rhodan were wearing battledresses. Their shields guarded them from the transmitter’s explosion.

Crest’s bloodless lips puckered. I hope you’re right, Trker-Hon.

Me too. Don’t forget, Crest, you’re a sick man. A very sick man. And the increased gravity presents an added strain for you.

Unfortunately. What’s your estimate? How much stronger is the gravity here compared to Earth?

My suit shows a reading of 1.4 gravos, said Michalovna.

Hmm, the Topsidan replied. He pulled his sleeve up to his elbow, took a handful of soil from the ground, sniffed it, then rubbed his scaly forearm with it. The lizard man had to make do without a protective battledress; none on Earth had fit the Topsidan.

Michalovna watched the procedure with a frown. Then it hit her that Trker-Hon was carrying out this ritual to give himself time to think and care for his scaly skin in the process. Normally, the Topsidan did this with a handful of sand and hot water, but now he was using what he had on hand.

Will you have trouble without a gravity neutralizer? Michalovna asked.

Based on your reading, the gravity is only a little stronger than on my homeworld, the lizard said. I’m not as young as I was, admittedly, but I’ll manage.

Well then. Crest wiped the whitish secretions from the corners of his eyes. Slowly, he stood up. Let’s turn our attention to this world the transmitter has beamed us to.

The transmitter!

Michalovna turned around again and looked at the device that had served as the receiving station. She activated the multifunction tool at her left wrist, and a beam of light surrounded the device.

In both size and construction, the transmitter here was exactly like the one in the undersea dome. Two columns bordered the surface, through which matter was beamed to a device on the other side. The columns narrowed towards the top. During use, gleaming energy fields of an unknown nature extended the columns and united them into an archway. The only difference was that a canopy of wood and leaves had been built above this one. Flowers protruded from long-stemmed vases.

Michalovna walked closer, sniffing cautiously. It smelled sweet but also pungent, almost of... Decay, she said.

Trker-Hon pointed at a basket woven from wide blades of grass sitting at the base of the transmitter. Dozens of beetles were crawling up and down the rim. Something lay in the basket that looked like the remains of a five-fingered hand. Pale bones jutted out, from which the gleaming black beetles were gnawing on the last remains of flesh, tendons, and muscles.

A ceremonial place, said Crest.

Trker-Hon raised his head and breathed in deeply. Then he took a few steps. The inability to see in three dimensions has made my mind readjust my other senses to compensate. He kneeled down, picked up a handful of humus, smelled it, and threw it aside. It’s only a gain of a few meaningless percentage points. Far less than I could have achieved with purposeful manipulation of the relevant areas of the brain.

Michalovna exchanged a brief sideways glance with Crest. The Arkonide shrugged in a perfectly human manner.

Trker-Hon pushed a bush aside. "But as they say so beautifully, ‘What I take with me out of the egg belongs to me alone.’ That may not be entirely applicable in my case, because my senses sharpened only later, but my genetics already knew this secret before I knew what awaited me. And that’s why... He bent over, then straightened himself triumphantly. And there we have it!"

Michalovna and Crest went over to him. What is it? she asked.

See for yourself!

Crest took the object Trker-Hon held out to him: a stick, not quite the length of an arm, made of wood or a wood-like material, covered in grooves and notch patterns.

Crest cleared his throat. This, too, looks like a ritual implement to me. Thus, the obvious conclusion that the stick is directly related to the transmitter altar.

But why was it lying in that bush? Michalovna asked. And how did you know it was there?

Trker-Hon’s lizard-like face twisted around the wide mouth and the thin-skinned cheeks. Michalovna wasn’t sure, but she assumed this was the Topsidian equivalent of a human smile.

I didn’t know that the ceremonial stick was in the bush, he said. I only followed the tracks. Direct your light source at the ground!

Michalovna looked at the path that Trker-Hon had taken. Next to the heavy footsteps the Topsidan had left behind was another trail in the soft ground. Smaller, more oval-shaped impressions than those of the lizard being, but clearly human.

Or humanlike, she thought.

Someone had the duty of guarding the altar, Trker-Hon concluded. A dull, monotonous task, more a punishment than a ritual honor. You take the ceremonial stick from your predecessor, already knowing that nothing will happen until daybreak, except maybe an animal unexpectedly appearing and then running off.

Trker-Hon underscored his explanation by moving the stick.

How great the shock must be when suddenly the unexpected happens! The altar comes to life, light floods the nocturnal forest, pulling it out of its twilight sleep. Frightened animals cry out. Then out of nowhere, a field appears, a terrifying, unfathomable field. Maybe you can already see the silhouettes of the creatures awakened by the altar. Two of them look similar to the observer. The third, however...looks more like a figure from a phantasmium! As quickly as possible, the altar guard jumps into the nearest bush! He loses the stick, but terror gives him wise counsel and carries him away as fast as he can manage. He has to get to his village, his safety. He has to tell the others about it!

You’re assuming the guard is humanoid? Crest asked.

Not necessarily. But the footprints strongly point towards it.

Any other far-reaching assumptions?

An assumption supported by a line of reasoning, Trker-Hon retorted. He bent over and pulled up a few plants. Look at these leaves. And here, this vine with the suction cups. Do they look familiar to you?

Crest answered in the negative. Michalovna shook her head, then immediately felt her stomach tighten convulsively. Those suction cups... They look alien. Very alien.

I’ve already seen these plants once before. Of course, flora is easier to spread from planet to planet than fauna, but the evidence fits together well.

You allude to the existence of the transmitter, Crest said. Do you know where we are?

Among other things, Trker-Hon replied. We’ve landed on a world that not only exhibits a gravity of 1.4 gravos, but has only one moon and is populated by humanoids. Judging by the footprints, rather squat, strong, and intelligent ones. We’ve only heard of one world in association with the transmitters, and the plant I hold in my hand exists on it. Ferrol!

Michalovna nodded. Before the transfer, she’d had thoughts about where they might rematerialize. Even then, she’d already thought about Ferrol in the Vega system among other things. She shook her head in surprise as an idea occurred to her and activated her battledress’s com unit, making the Positronic search for signals on all possible frequencies.

Meanwhile, Crest tilted his head back. A shrewd and an indeed seamless chain of evidence, he said, pondering. Please don’t take it the wrong way if I tell you that it’s sadly not correct.

The scaly bulges above Trker-Hon’s eyes drew together. How so?

Well, Crest said with a melancholy smile, even an old man’s fainting spell can lead to an important discovery. Come with me!

Crest directed them to a small clearing. Michalovna felt as though she could reach out and touch the enormous disc directly above them in the dark blue sky.

What do you want to show us? Trker-Hon asked. What clue doesn’t fit?

The moon.

The Topsidan spread his arms out, uncomprehending. It’s right there, Crest. All you need to do is look up at it.

It’s not this moon that breaks your train of logic, Crest said, an almost roguish smile dancing on his colorless lips, "but that one!" He turned around and pointed with outstretched arm at a mountain range. Between two peaks that tapered to points glowed the thin sickle of a moon. A second moon.

But... Trker-Hon began. He shook his head as if trying to shake off a pesky insect. But I recognize it! Up there is Ferrolia, the first moon. The invasion fleet of my people’s despotate destroyed the second moon, Byton, in the course of conquering the Vega system, to push the Ferrons to surrender.

Michalovna gasped. What had looked like a squabble between two evenly matched beings of different origins had suddenly swelled into a mystery that took her breath away. How can this be?

At that moment, something crackled next to her ear. My suit picked up a com signal! she said, excited.

Play it!

Michalovna gave the command. For two breaths, all she heard was the distant shouting of animals in the jungle before it crackled again and suddenly...music rang out! Astounded, she listened to the light melody and the sparse lyrics sung by a female and very sad-sounding voice.

That’s Ferron, said Trker-Hon. It fits, all of it—except for that moon!

I propose that we sit down for a moment and recover from the surprise, said Crest. The sun will rise soon, and then I’m sure we’ll learn more.

Trker-Hon agreed, although Michalovna didn’t have the impression that the Topsidan needed a breather. She helped Crest and sat down next to him. Trker-Hon rested on his tail for a little longer before following their lead.

Michalovna cast her eyes around the clearing, the trees, and the mountains, looking again and again at the two moons. She listened to the Ferron song. The translator struggled with a word now and again, but beyond that, she immediately understood what the woman was singing about.

Love.

Scientists insisted that mathematics was the real language of the universe. Michalovna had no doubt, however, that it had to be love that tied the cosmos together. For where there was no love, there was also no one to whom the cosmos could mean anything. She knew that she wouldn’t win any scientific debates with this argument. But to hell with science!

She pressed her lips together. She didn’t want this incomparable situation to corrupt her emotional world. She had accepted the new world as it presented itself to her. And she wanted to keep it that way. Even upon suddenly finding herself on an alien planet. She, Tatiana Michalovna, along with an alien who looked like a human and another who looked like a lizard. Crest da Zoltral, the elderly Arkonide scientist consumed from the inside by cancer. Trker-Hon, the former Wise One who had turned his back on his own culture. Searching for the Planet of Eternal Life together, on a world under alien moons, one of which shouldn’t even exist. And she was listening to a song that brought her straight back home, back to her innermost, most sacred self.

A flock of birds flew up. Then a spear of pale blue light thrust out over a mountain ridge. Holding her breath, Michalovna watched as the alien sun rose, a glowing blue-white ball that made the world blaze and sparkle as if sprinkling it with pixie dust.

She raised her hand and shielded her eyes. This alien sun looked enormous. And it beamed in a pale bluish white.

There’s no doubt anymore, Trker-Hon said.

Yes, Crest agreed. It’s Vega.

2.

Sid González

September 26, 2036

Lakeside Institute, Terrania

Sid González looked at the strange bundle of fur between the white sheets. A unique scent wafted from it, effortlessly cutting through the clammy smell of sterilizing agents and cleaning solutions in the hospital room.

Gucky was breathing through his half-open mouth. A small, pink tongue twitched against his short lip fur.

His brain waves are normalizing, Fulkar said. He’s waking up.

Good, said John Marshall. Then we arrived at just the right time.

Gucky’s eyelids trembled; his tongue drew back. From the movement of the tousled fur at the Mousebeaver’s throat, Sid could see him swallowing several times with some effort. The mouth opened and closed.

The odor intensified. It reminded Sid of the streets where he’d grown up. For a few weeks, he’d been the owner of a Chihuahua until it had gone missing during a rushed escape. A laughably small animal with big googly eyes...

Gucky’s eyes were large too. Intelligence slumbered in them, often accompanied by a good helping of frivolity and playfulness.

The Mousebeaver weakly cleared his throat. What’s going on? Where... Where am I?

Among friends, John said softly.

In Terrania’s Lakeside Institute, Fulkar added. I’m Fulkar, your attending physician.

Dr. Eric Manoli didn’t say a word. He only brushed across his lips with the nail of his right thumb.

With his thin fingers, Fulkar tapped at the medopad attached to the top end of the bed. You were unconscious for three Earth days. I could have woken you up, but it seemed appropriate in this situation to let nature take its course.

Gucky blinked, confused. His head jerked up, but then quickly sank back into the soft pillow. I was unconscious? That... That’s never happened to me before. That can’t... He swallowed again. His forehead muscles tensed. Betty! he whispered. Did she make it? And the others...

John stepped closer to the bed. Betty’s doing fine. She’s safe now, along with the other mutants Monk abducted.

Gucky wiped his eyes with slender fingers, wiping away the remnants of secretions that had built up while he was unconscious. I remember now. Virginia. The farm. And...Monk.

He’s being held securely, Sid assured him.

Gucky lightly raised his head and looked at the teen. Sid had the impression that the corners of the Mousebeaver’s mouth had turned up into a smile.

Monk, Monk, Monk, Fulkar said as he folded the medopad back into its initial position. A remarkable catch! His anti-para-gift is of the greatest interest for research!

The doctor paused, then tapped twice on a silver touch panel attached to his left temple. Almost confused, he shook his head before straightening up to his full height. You spent days struggling against this anti-para-gift. Any doctor, even the backward ones from this planet, would tell you that your strength would run out at some point. As such, blacking out was no more than an inevitable consequence. Action, reaction. Simple as that.

Eric Manoli ran a hand down his face. For a moment, he looked as though he wanted to say something, but instead he stifled a yawn and remained silent.

Suddenly, Sid had to yawn too. His thoughts were creeping along like lazy wanderers in the midday sun. Something in him was vibrating. Flickering. Sid felt as though every individual cell in his body were exhausted. Like the battery of a pod that had only one line left out of five, blinking red in a feverish haste.

Sid recalled a conversation with John. A few days after they’d landed in Terrania, John had pulled him aside with a worried look. He’d advised Sid to keep his curiosity in check, to take it easier, and even to say no for now if anyone wanted to use him—or rather, his gift—on a mission.

You have to get used to your new life first, Sid, he’d said. How many times have you had to adjust to new surroundings over the past few years? Before you could really adapt to the new structures, time was already marching on. You were used. You had to grow up at a very young age. At the same time, you still have the dreaming boy in you, who—

I’m sixteen, Sid had protested. "I am grown up. I’m not a child anymore!"

John had considered a moment before saying, Okay, Sid. Then let’s say you’re a young tree whose roots don’t reach as deep into the earth yet as the knotty old ones.

A tree?

A tree. And one that’s been pulled up several times and planted somewhere new, and that still has to get used to the new soil and strange climate. Trees need time before they’re firmly rooted. People need that too. In that sense, you’re no different than any other person.

As Fulkar ran an analytical device with a blue glow over Gucky’s body, Sid thought, This exhaustion. This flickering in my cells. The empty batteries. Are they lacking in energy because they’re getting too few nutrients from the ground?

He shook his head as if trying to scare off a fly that had settled on his thoughts.

Dammit! I’m not a tree. I’m Sid. One of the Terran Union’s most important team members. Depending on the situation, I’m a transport option, an escape route, or a weapon for Perry Rhodan. Whenever he needs me, I’m there for him and for John. And the others.

He considered a moment, then thought, And I’m a spacefarer. I fly to the stars. I don’t need any roots. My yearning for the stars is what nourishes me.

Sid smiled at this train of thought, which seemed very grown-up to him. Then he paused. Something had changed. His stomach felt strange. It suddenly hung in his abdomen like a solid lump. In slow motion, Sid turned his head to look at the window. Lush rays of sunlight came in, drawing a path of light from his feet to the window. For several seconds, he felt as though he’d lived through all this once before. The room, the smells, the path of light’s unmistakable invitation to walk over.

Déjà vu, Sid thought.

As if sleepwalking, he put one foot in front of the other and moved towards the window. Then he looked down at the Lakeside Institute’s provisional forecourt. Freshly planted trees wavered in the weak wind blowing from the Juyan lake. There was a bustle of activity on the connecting street that led along the bank towards Terrania. Humanity’s new capital city rose up proudly at the other end of the body of water. The nascent sea of houses was reflected in the lake’s slate-gray surface. In the center, the Stardust Tower was growing high up into the sky. Sometimes, it felt to Sid as if the tower would never stop growing.

He loved the view. When he didn’t have any duties to attend to, he often sat for hours at one of the tower’s high windows, or on a street corner, and watched the city getting bigger. He enjoyed the idea of being there when a legend came into being. Machu Picchu, Palenque, Tikal, and other illustrious cities of South America—how often he’d wondered what it must have been like when they were being built. Hundreds of years later, the image of it had faded like an old-fashioned analog photograph. Faded from the memory of humanity.

Sid had no doubt that Terrania’s star would shine longer and brighter than that of Terra’s other cities put together.

He raised his right hand and shaded his eyes. Work at the Lakeside Institute of Mental and Physical Health seemed to be proceeding as usual. People of all persuasions were assembling ready-made pieces into barracks and installing water and power lines. Others were walking along the dusty streets within pedestrian zones marked with spray paint. In between, vehicles and improvised machines jolted along, transporting people and building components.

Sid furrowed his brow, unnerved by the feeling of being caught in a dream that wouldn’t end. Why did everything seem so strange and surreal? Why were his eyes burning like fire? Why were tears suddenly running down his cheeks?

Many of the people resembled one another because they were similarly dressed. Bright, airy clothes, and also uniforms from which they had removed the rank, troop category, and country insignia. Many among them were Asian and on the shorter side. Others were European, African, Indian, American. And among them...

For a few seconds, Sid stared at him. He felt like his heart could stop beating. He knew him.

No, not him. It. A ghost!

It towered above the humans it walked between by more than a head. It was wearing a light brown garment that reminded Sid of the title image of the worn copy of The Leatherstocking Tales. As a child, that book had been his most valuable possession until he had lost it one day.

Suddenly, a cold sensation spread through Sid. He had to be dreaming. This man strolling along the street didn’t exist anymore! Evil had caught up with him. The evil he’d harbored inside himself.

Sid had thought a lot about evil. About the methods that evil employed. About the risks people took when they walked that path. How many had died after once exuding a sheen of invincibility because evil had given them power and strength?

Strength and power. Not things you could take with you to the other side. All that ever remained were others’ thoughts of you. And why, Sid had asked himself back then, would it be desirable to be remembered as a failed villain?

This train of thought had reassured him at the time. It had given him the confidence to stay on the right path. The good guys weren’t always victorious. The good guys weren’t always right. But you remembered the good guys. You regretted and mourned their deaths. You were happy and relieved when one less evil person was carrying out his dark machinations. The evildoer’s death was necessary because evil couldn’t triumph.

And because of that—for that exact reason!—it was an impossibility, a monstrosity, that he was seeing there on the street, not merely a man who should have been dead.

Sid’s confusion turned to dread. The dread turned to fear. And the fear gave rise to anger.

Ivanhoe! he cried at the top of his lungs.

The shout echoed off the window, making his ears ring. His heart beat faster. His cheeks felt hot and wet at the same time.

Sparks flew as he concentrated on the jump. He distantly heard John’s voice, but the words didn’t reach him.

I’ll kill